James Craig - Time of Death

‘There you are.’ Orb handed him a tumbler half-full of indeterminate Scotch and kept a tall glass half-filled with a red liquid for himself. ‘Just a cranberry juice for me,’ he grinned, sinking slowly into the chair opposite. ‘It’s a long flight. Cheers!’

Carlyle raised his glass slightly. ‘Cheers.’ He took a sip. Smooth. And, again, better than he was used to.

Orb placed his glass on the low table between them. ‘So, I take it that you have come to see me quietly off the premises?’

‘No, not really,’ Carlyle replied. ‘I just wanted to see you before you left to say thank you for all your help with my investigation.’

‘Come now, Inspector,’ Orb grinned, ‘I do not get the impression that you are the type of man to come all the way to the airport just to fulfil a minor social pleasantry.’

Carlyle took another mouthful of Scotch, letting it sit under his tongue before it slipped down his throat. ‘Well, maybe I’m not just here to say thank you. I hoped you might be able to clear up a few things for me – some loose ends.’

Orb raised an eyebrow. ‘There are loose ends?’

‘Not officially. My case – the murder of Agatha Mills – is closed.’

‘Good.’

‘The final verdict was that her husband did it.’

‘I see.’

‘But . . .’

The Ambassador smiled. ‘But you do not think this was a simple case of a man killing his wife?’

Carlyle shrugged. ‘Things are often more complicated than they might seem.’

‘Inspector, I am – I was a diplomat – I know that things are always more complicated than they seem. Or, if not, then we make them so.’ Orb chuckled. ‘What do you think happened here?’

‘I think that Matias Gori killed Agatha Mills,’ Carlyle said softly, ‘along with another woman, Sandra Groves and probably a third, Monica Hartson.’

Orb looked at the inspector, giving nothing away. ‘Why?’

‘Because they wanted to have him arrested and tried for war crimes. They think he murdered a whole family in Iraq.’

A soothing female voice with a perfect Home Counties accent came over the tannoy: ‘ Passengers are now invited to begin boarding BA flight 93 to Toronto and Santiago .’

Placing his juice on the table, Orb shifted in his seat.

‘I assume that you knew about all this,’ Carlyle continued, ‘because those women wrote to you, asking for action to be taken against Gori.’

‘You should never assume, Inspector, said Orb, holding his gaze. ‘Assumptions can be misleading – dangerous even.’

‘Only if they’re wrong.’ Carlyle shrugged. ‘My job is all about making assumptions. The facts either fit them or they don’t. If they don’t, I make some new ones.’

‘It’s an approach, I suppose.’

‘Did you know about the accusations against Gori?’

‘Lots of people write to the Embassy, Inspector. The Ambassador gets to read hardly any of this correspondence. If any of those ladies ever wrote to me, I am sure that I did not see it. For that I apologise.’

‘Sir.’ Carlyle pushed himself to the edge of his seat and leaned forward. ‘I am not here in any official capacity. I am certainly not looking to cause you any trouble. Nothing that we say will go any further.’

Orb stared into his drink.

‘I just want to know what happened.’

‘Why?’ Orb asked. ‘We both know that this . . . mess has been dealt with. It’s over now.’

Good question. The inspector sipped his whisky. ‘Agatha Mills spent forty years fighting on behalf of her brother. She, and the others, fought for what they believed in.’

The Ambassador smiled. ‘And you think they deserve answers?’

‘I suppose so,’ Carlyle mumbled into his glass.

‘Then I fear that you will be disappointed,’ Orb sighed. ‘You see, I made some enquiries of my own. It seems that there are a number of cases relating to the 1973 coup that are in the process of being dropped. The Pettigrew case is one of them. There will therefore be no trial.’

Finishing his drink, Carlyle thought about the empty space in the family mausoleum in North London that would never be filled. ‘That is a shame.’

‘That is life, Inspector.’

‘Yes, I suppose it is. But the Pettigrew trial was not what was concerning Gori.’

‘That was the other thing I checked,’ Orb said. ‘Matias has never been cited in any of the various investigations, either concluded or ongoing, into the Ishaqi massacre in Iraq.’ Carlyle made to say something, but the Ambassador held up a hand. ‘He didn’t even get a mention. Whatever these ladies, or indeed Matias himself, might have thought, no one else was paying any attention.’

‘Maybe they should have done.’

Orb raised an eyebrow. ‘For a policeman, that sounds a little limp , if you don’t mind me saying so.’

Carlyle sucked down a little more of the Scotch. ‘Not at all.’

‘ This is a second call for BA flight 93 to Toronto and Santiago. ’

The Ambassador pulled a boarding card from his jacket pocket and started playing with it. ‘We both know,’ he said quietly, ‘that there was something wrong with Matias. The wiring in his brain wasn’t quite right. He was the kind of man who would have been very much at home in the Chile of 1973.’ He looked at Carlyle. ‘In the London of today, he did not fit in so well.’

‘So he did kill those women?’

Orb stood up. ‘Really,’ he said, ‘I don’t know. I assume so, but I don’t know.’

The inspector placed his empty glass on a nearby table and got to his feet. ‘What about his death?’ he asked.

Orb picked up a small tan leather case from beside his chair and weighed it in his hand. ‘That was a surprise, for Matias to step off the roof like that.’ He gazed up at the monitor above his head telling him to go to Gate 72. ‘Maybe he was overcome with remorse.’

Carlyle laughed. ‘Maybe.’

Orb extended a hand. ‘Remorse can be a good thing.’

Carlyle shook his hand. ‘Indeed it can. I hope you have a safe journey home, sir, and good luck with your retirement.’

‘Thank you, Inspector. My wife has plenty of plans to keep me busy, so I’m not sure that I’ll even notice being retired!’

‘I know the feeling,’ Carlyle said. ‘My wife doesn’t like to see me idle either.’

‘Good luck to both of us, then.’ Orb smiled as he turned away, heading for the terminal and his departure gate.

Watching him go, Carlyle looked up the time on the screen listing upcoming departures. The day was ebbing away; by the time he managed to get back into the city, the working day would be over. Settling back into his seat, he thought that he might just enjoy his luxurious surroundings here for a little while longer.

He had just finished his second whisky – a sixteen-year-old Lagavulin – and was contemplating a third, when his private phone rang. That’ll be Helen, he thought. I shouldn’t have made that quip about her keeping me busy. Answering, he tried to assume his most sober voice. ‘Yes?’

The voice on the other end of the line wasn’t his wife’s, but was immediately recognisable all the same. Not bothering with any pleasantries, Dominic Silver got straight to the point.

‘I’ve found the boy.’

Carlyle looked along the empty road and wondered quite how he had ended up here. Behind him was a two-storey, steel-framed warehouse on the edge of an industrial estate near the M25. Standing under an orange street light, he looked up at the seemingly deserted offices on the first floor. Ferociously tired, he hopped from foot to foot to try and keep himself alert while he waited.